As your conference grows, it faces increased complexity.
According to a recent IBM study of 1,600+ CEOs, the biggest challenge their companies face is the complexity gap. Eight out of ten of those CEOs expect their business environment to grow in complexity but less than half are prepared to face that change.
Your conference’s growth faces similar complexity gaps. Forward-thinking conference professionals see gathering business intelligence about their target market as imperative. These … [Read more...]

Recently, I wrote about how most conference organizers are really bad at measurement.
Oh, we’re fairly good at measuring our conference goals.
As long as those goals are based on common conference inputs and outputs. You know, expenses/revenue, attendance, exhibitors and sponsors. But rarely do we measure anything else that proves ROI, ROO or ROA (return on attendance). And rarer still do we even know how to define and measure conference shatterpoints (vulnerabilities in our conference, … [Read more...]

Most conferences suck at collecting data. (Oh, were good at collecting registration and fees but that's about it!)
It requires work, intentionality, time and interpretation to get the feedback we need to make improvements and drive innovation.
I like what CEO and meetings professional Hugh Plappert says about conference measurement:
Measuring requires planning. Planning requires responding to measuring. Most humans do not like to do either. They rather thrive on inspiration and positive … [Read more...]

Conference professionals suck at measurement.
If you trust your conference smile sheet evaluations as a barometer of how effective your conference education was, you are just being foolish says learning research psychologist Dr. Will Thalheimer.
Ouch! The truth hurts!
The Emptiness Of Smile Sheets Evaluations
Thalheimer points to research that the smile sheet evaluation shows a 0.9 correlation that learning occurred. That’s basically no correlation at all.
Smile sheets are not related … [Read more...]

The voice of the customer is always right.
Or is it?
When conference organizers look for ways to improve the attendees’ experience, they typically turn to their registrants for feedback. They turn to their customers to direct their investment decisions for conference improvements.
Gaining Conference Attendee Intelligence
Conference organizers use a variety of ways to collect customer feedback. Usually, they send an overall conference evaluation to all of their stakeholders. Some … [Read more...]

Let's face it. Most conference education is lackluster. Actually, most of it stinks, is dull and could be used to line bird cages.
Generally, our customers say they attend conferences and meetings to learn and network. Yet, we as conference organizers continue to do the same things we've always done when planning our meetings--focus on the logistics and details.
Ultimately, the biggest barrier to better conference education is the speaker. Conference organizers typically secure industry … [Read more...]